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Whatâ€™s next for Gina Carano?

October

31

Now that EliteXC is dead, a plethora of MMA free agents will be hitting the market soon, one of the most prominent being Gina â€œThe Convictionâ€ Carano.

Gina Carano quickly became the face of womenâ€™s MMA. Coming from a successful muay thai career, Carano made a quick and successful transition into mixed martial arts. Carano is undefeated, and has defeated all of her opponents in exciting fashion during her reign with ProElite. EliteXC spent a lot of money marketing her, and she is the most recognizable personality in womenâ€™s MMA.

Caranoâ€™s ability to put womenâ€™s MMA on the mainstream map annoyed a lot of female fighters who have been competing in mixed martial arts for many years. Tara Larosa, widely considered the best female mixed martial artist today, is one of those fighters.

Larosa has been competing in mixed martial arts for 6 years. In that time she has compiled a 15-1 record and has showed the ability to knock out and submit her opponents.

Carano and Larosa have had some words back and forth, but a fight would never materialized because the women fight for different organizations.

This past summer, LaRosa signed a lucrative deal with the Kentucky-based American Fight League. The record contract generated much discussion, but has not yet resulted in a fight for the six-year veteran.

“I stand to make between 500,000 and 750,000 (dollars) depending on my performance and how I do with all of my fights,” said LaRosa, now the sport’s highest-paid female fighter.

The AFL is trying to obtain 20-30 female fighters, making their stable of female mixed martial artists the largest in North America.

If the AFL can avoid going bankrupt, this would probably be the most logical place for Gina Carano to go. Dana White has little interest in promoting female MMA, and most other high profile organizations donâ€™t showcase womenâ€™s MMA.

“Gina Carano’s a talented fighter,” White says. “She’s a star. She should’ve been the main event (on CBS’ last EliteXC broadcast). My thing with women and fighting is there isn’t enough good women to create a whole division. Could I do some one-off fights here and there? Yeah, but that’s not really what we do.”

Looks like the AFL is the most logical place for Carano to go. She wonâ€™t have the spotlight that she had with EliteXC, but at least she will be able to compete. Hopefully HDNet will pick up the AFL so we can see a little more of Gina. A super fight with Larosa would be pretty cool to see.

Web programmer by day, practicing mixed martial artist at night, Larry Vollmer Jr. brings the latest news from the Ultimate Fighting Championship and the rest of the mixed martial arts world - a fast-spreading obsession on TV and online. These are the bouts - they occur in an octagon-shaped "ring" - that test men's souls.